


Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay

by GrayJay



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Death of x, Emma Frost is everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:02:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9935510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: Sometimes she wonders in spite of herself whether she saved him, pulled him whole into her own mind. That maybe it’s only his body hidden away, and Scott--the real Scott--is somehow still present and intact.Fragments ofDeath of X, through Emma's eyes.





	

It feels perverse letting the illusion of Scott hold her while she cries for him, but Emma does it all the same. After all: there is no one else she would let herself cry in front of; and once this is over, she’ll have a lifetime left to cry alone.

 

 

 

It almost surprises her, how easy the illusion is to maintain--almost reflexive. Sometimes she’d swear that Scott is speaking for himself. Other times, she takes it for what it really is: testament to how well she knew him.

Sometimes she wonders in spite of herself whether she saved him, pulled him whole into her own mind. That maybe it’s only his body hidden away, and Scott--the real Scott--is somehow still present and intact.

“You know I’m not,” he tells her. Memories flash up unbidden--the blurred figure of a woman built out of moon dust, the terrible and sudden pain of something being torn away. _The Phoenix could have done it_ , she thinks. The Phoenix _had_ , once; and the memory is bitter, ash on her tongue.

 

 

 

“Emma,” Scott says. Even in her mind, he looks tired, brown eyes tinged with fading red. “Let me go.”

What was waiting for him on the other side, she wonders. Jean Grey, resplendent in flames? Maybe there was nothing: silence and darkness stretching on into eternity. Emma has died before, but brought back no revelations from the moments lost between breaths. Next time, will he be there to take her hand?

“Emma,” he says again, soft, patient.

“Not yet,” says Emma.

 

 

 

She turns to diamond instead of sleeping, unsure what Scott might do if she were to dream.

 

 

 

In the end, she gives him the death he wanted-- _no_ , she corrects herself, _he never wanted to die. Not really_. She gives his death the _meaning_ he would have wanted: her final gift to him. Emma doesn’t gild his legacy or smooth the rough patches. When he stands before the Inhumans, his speech-- _how many men get to give their own eulogies?_ \--is unvarnished, honest in ways that surprise even her.

“Ideas can’t die,” she whispers along with him. The words are his, not hers: ideas have never been enough for Emma.

 

 

 

Emma stays diamond through the funeral: transparent, refractory, perfectly still; face blank, body frozen.

If she were flesh, she’s not sure she’d be able to imagine him beside her without giving in to the desire to summon him up. Is she compelled by her own loneliness? Emma wonders. Or is it the last lingering shards of Scott, still struggling to break free?

 

 

 

The young five cluster together, avoiding everyone but a scant few friends. Even Jean drifts away from Ororo’s contingent to sit with them, beside-- _him_. Emma tries not to glance their way. After all: He isn’t _her_ Scott.

After the service, Laura breaks away from their group and lingers by Emma for a minute before reaching out a tentative hand to touch her wrist. “I’m sorry,” she says; and oh, how easy it is for the rest of them to forget that she was a Hellion once, too. Deadly little X-23, all rage and claws and fear, now grown up into something strange and graceful; and Emma feels a swell of pride in spite of herself.

“We’re all sorry, darling,” Emma tells her, “but I do appreciate the sentiment.” And because it’s Laura, she adds, “He was very proud of you, you know.”

 

 

 

“Tell me this is all some trick.” Whatever ruined half of Alex’s face has left his voice with a persistent rasp. “That he’s just hiding somewhere, as part of some elaborate scheme you two cooked up.”

Emma was expecting recriminations, rage, sanctimony. She has no defense prepared against the persistence of hope; and whatever of Scott is left in her whispers that she can’t lie now. Not about this. Not to _Alex_.

It’s the first time she’s seen Scott since he died--the real Scott, the empty, ruined shell of the only man she ever _wanted_ to give a damn about her--and by the time Alex says his brother’s name, Emma is flesh and blood again.

 

 

 

“Ideas can’t die,” Emma tells Alex, and later Erik. “Ideas can’t die,” she whispers again and again, alone in a tangle of satin sheets, willing the words to fill the empty space beside her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from [Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night."](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night) I know it's a bit on the nose, but I couldn't resist.


End file.
